4 replies to this topic

[Chris M]

Drove up to Tule Lake last week for 4 days of waterfowl hunting with my brother and a friend. The hunting just plain sucked. There were lots of birds, but no weather to get them off the water. It was a bit cold - 20º in the morning, 40º in the afternoon - but no wind, no rain, no fog. The ponds were slightly iced over (1/8"). In 4 days of hunting, we had only 2 good size flocks come into the decoys. Of course both of these flocks came in during the last couple hours of the last day. Most of the other flights were singles and doubles that were smart enough to stay away from the tules. I went home with only a hen golden eye, and a spoony eclipse drake. My brother got a pintail eclipse drake and a hen mallard. Our buddy, who's been duck hunting for 30+ years (and is a much better shot than my brother and I) went home with a mixed bag of 10 ducks, so he didn't do so bad. The goose hunting was pretty much non-existant, partly due to the lack of fog. I think there was a total of 2-3 geese shot at the refuge during those 4 days. Apparently, there was a weather system that moved through the area this week - maybe the hunting has gotten a bit better.We tried our hand at calling coyotes in the modoc national forest. No coyotes, but we got the attention of a couple golden eagles.The fishing was great. We drove up to Medicine lake two evenings for a total of 6 limits of brook and rainbow trout. We were catching trout with just about every cast. Too bad they were all little 12-14 inchers.We saw many very nice bucks, including one monster non-typical that at first looked like it had a tumble-weed stuck in it's antlers (~500-600yds away). A look through the spotting scope revealed that the 'tumble weed' was indeed it's antlers. A big mass of points going in every possible direction.Overall it was a good trip, and a great learning experience for me, as I've been hunting for only a little less than a year.

[BullsEye]

Sounds like you had a lot of fun and now you know where the big bucks are for next year!

[Pogo]

No, the waterfowl hunting has not been good up here. I'm on or right by the refuge often as I live only a couple miles away, and have been seeing lots of birds but the weather has just been beautiful all fall... which is bad for hunting. We've had very little rain or snow. You sure as hell shouldn't be able to drive to Medicine Lake this time of year, it should be snowed in already. I drove up there on Thanksgiving and was very little snow and none on the roads. Should be a foot deep or more.I'm guessing the big bucks you saw were on the refuge or in the Lava Beds NP. Those big bucks are getting good at staying were they are safe. I enjoy once and a while driving from the refure HQ, along the hill road through LVNP just to look at the bucks. Some monsters out there. Where did you try calling? MNF huge, but yet the coyotes are mostly only in the lower areas. The refuge itself holds more coyotes than anywhere, but unfortunately you can't hunt them. Which is a shame as they are trying to raise waterfowl and nothing is harder on the nesting birds than coyotes.

[Chris M]

We were up at Medicine lake the 2 days after Thanksgiving. We did have a little trouble getting up there the second day - the little bit of snow that was on the road was packed down so much that it was pretty much ice, and the wheels hitting the side of the snow 'ruts' caused the back end of the truck to swing out as we slid sideways up the hill about 30'.One of the big bucks was at Frey's island in the refuge. The other 2 were near what I think is called Sheepy Ridge.We saw and heard many, many coyotes, but all of them were, of course, on un-huntable land. To be honest, I don't know where we were calling - except that it was near an old "line shack". It was my first time north of Yuba City, so I knew nothing of the area.

[clampdaddy]

We finally had a good day on wednsday. Pretty much everybody at the club shot their limits. And of course, now that we can't shoot canvasbacks they were thick as flies on my end of the pond.